11 Beautifully Bonkers, Bad, and Brainless Game of Thrones Fan Theories Ruthlessly Crushed by Season 6

Which one of your favorites bit the dust?

As Game of Thrones went further and further off book this season, a new-ish aspect of the fandom cropped up: wild, crackpot speculation. The world of Game of Thrones—the books and the show—has always invited speculation, given author George R. R. Martin’s fondness for sprinkling hints among prophecies, dreams, and visions that pay off several books later. And the show itself has a history of intricate and, ultimately, disproven theories. (This is my favorite from Season 3.)

This season of Game of Thrones has paid off some major long-held book theories, including the events of the Tower of Joy, which were never explicitly confirmed in the books but revealed in the Season 6 finale. No doubt about it now: Lyanna Stark is Jon Snow’s mother. And book readers were right to suspect that there was more than just meat in the pies Wyman Manderly served to the Freys in A Dance of Dragons. Frey Pie and R+L=J? Those are true. (Still not sure about the Benjen/Coldhands thing!)

But the season also quashed several long-cherished book-reader theories and revealed the flimsiness of a lot of wild, show-based speculation. Book-reader theories, often based in hours of meticulous, close readings of the text, are one thing; theories based off, say, a screenshot of an episode, are another, especially when they spread throughout the fandom with headlines that scream this theory will “BLOW YOUR MIND” or “CHANGES EVERYTHING.” Then again, they’re hard to avoid for any popular show in this era of Internet TV fandom. Some shows, like Breaking Bad and its successor, Better Call Saul, are tailor-made for this kind of Reddit-fueled theorizing. Those writers intentionally leave nutty bread crumbs for their fans to follow. And other shows, like Mad Men, get wrapped up in the theorizing frenzy. That show never really paid off any of those elaborate fan theories, did it?

So is there really any harm in crackpot theories? Not really! It’s fun. Theorists only risk setting up expectations of huge, elaborate payoffs that will never come. And if we learned anything from Game of Thrones this season, it’s that for all its magic and narrative turns, the show is actually telling a much more straightforward story than many of its fans would have us believe. George R. R. Martin loved his elaborate twists, but show-runners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff don’t necessarily have that luxury. They have to lay out a plot their massive TV audience can easily follow and they don’t have thousands of pages of rich backstory to help pave the way for payoff. Here are 11 fan theories smashed to smithereens this season on Game of Thrones. There are many like them, and one is even mine.

Did Hodor warg into young Lyanna Stark’s horse and that’s why he has the demeanor of a pack animal? Like most other theories, this started on Reddit before breaking wide. But this particular theory had a short shelf life. Born in Episode 2 (when we met young Hodor) and dead by Episode 6 (when we discovered Hodor’s true origin), this is a cautionary tale that should remind us that while the books are fond of the concept, the HBO series seems very reluctant to use warging/skin-changing at all. (Warging is technically only the term when we’re talking about wolves.) Even the Stark kids who, in the books, have warg dreams about their direwolves, are, with the exception of Bran, warg-free in the show.

Speaking of which! This next bonkers/debunked theory was mine. I was certain that, according to the rules of George R.R. Martin’s universe, Jon Snow had to come back from the dead wrong or changed in some way. But that hasn’t really been the case, has it? Or did I miss Jon’s big character shift? Was it the hairstyle change? Is that it? Whether or not Jon has undergone some subtle, internal shift, he certainly doesn’t have anything close to a wolfish demeanor. Though Ghost has been suspiciously absent for most of the season (seriously, where is he?) so maybe . . .

Just kidding. This is thoroughly debunked. The closest we got is Jon’s new nickname: the White Wolf. While we’re coming clean, I also believed someone we knew, either Daario or Varys, was behind the Sons of the Harpy. Man, sometimes it feels good to admit when you’re very, very wrong.

Did Bran travel back in time and whisper, “Burn them all,” in reference to the White Walkers and drive King Aerys mad? I mean, probably not. I suppose this one could still come true. But this particular fan theory ignores the fact that madness runs in the Targaryen family line. Aerys’s appearance in Bran’s flashbacks was there to prep audiences for Cersei’s big conflagration, not to tie his descent to Bran in any way.

The more interesting aspect of Bran’s travel has to do with the fact that he can see the future. He saw Cersei’s fiery green vengeance before it happened. (And, in previous visions, he’s seen what we assume is probably Drogon flying over King’s Landing.) This opens up a lot of narrative possibilities for Game of Thrones going forward. Bran’s potential future visions will be perfect fodder for crackpot speculation that’s actually based on show material. We also saw in the season finale that Ned turned around before going into the Tower of Joy even though Bran didn’t call out to his father on this visit. So once Bran has affected the past, the past stays changed. As the Three-Eyed Raven said, “The ink is already dry.” It will be helpful to bear that in mind as a rule about Bran’s travels going forward.

Despite the fact that Sansa would definitely be showing by now, some stubborn viewers are still clinging to this theory, which has a pretty nasty origin story. (And, no, I’m not talking about Sansa’s wedding night.) Actor Liam Cunningham was the first to laugh off the more literal reading of Ramsay’s line, “You can’t kill me, I’m part of you now.” Now Sansa herself, Sophie Turner, has arrived to set the record straight.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter (which was one of many outlets to run with this theory), Turner said about those taking Ramsay’s words too literally:

Do you mean literally or figuratively? (Laughs.) I think some people
have taken it very literally, thinking that she might be pregnant.
Personally, I think it’s more figurative, especially because months
and months have gone on and Sansa really hasn’t developed a baby
belly. So I think he means he’s going to forever be imprinted on her
in a way that he’s done such a terrible thing to her. He’s taken
something of hers that’s so precious. I think he believes that will
always be a part of her, but I think he underestimates just how strong
she is, and just how easily she can forget him. Now that she’s killed
him she can forget him, and she can move on with her life.

So can we be done with this now?

I suspect this particular theory was born out of a desire to make Arya’s dreary training in Braavos a little more interesting. A Redditor wondered if, perhaps, Arya and the Waif were the same person. Thanks to a boost from some mainstream Web sites, the theory spread like wildfire across the Internet. But, no, Arya killed the Waif and hung her very real, bloody face on the wall. Thanks to the face-swapping antics of the House of Black and White and the unexciting (and occasionally illogical) nature of Arya’s story line, the Braavosi theories just got wilder and wilder as the series progressed. Arya has a stalker! (Actually, just an extra!) Syrio Forel is there! (Actually, just another extra!) That wasn’t Arya on the bridge! (Actually, it was!)

Don’t expect the Arya theories to stop. Now that she’s running around Westeros with the ability to slap on the face of every serving wench she sees (and, apparently, change her body shape in the process) some viewers are likely to suspect anyone we meet could be Arya in disguise. And from time to time . . . it will be!

Are Jon Snow and Meera Reed actually twins? As most bonkers Game of Thrones theories do, this one got its start on Reddit but broke wide last August—when the fandom was starved for anything Thrones-related to talk about—thanks to a post on a major Internet publication. The theory posited that when Lyanna was dying in the Tower of Joy she had two babies; Ned took one, and his buddy, Howland Reed, took the other. It’s a tale as old as Star Wars: A New Hope. (O.K., much older.) There’s not a lot of basis for this in the text and one presumes it has more to do with the actors Kit Harington and Ellie Kendrick looking kind of similar (those curls!) than anything else. This theory died on the vine in Episode 10 when Ned walked into the Tower to find one dying sister, two helpless attendants, and just the one baby: Jon Snow.

So R+L=J (no M) but what does the R stand for? Book readers (who cracked the case of Jon Snow’s parentage years ago and devised the acronym to begin with) are very certain it’s Daenerys’s brother Rhaegar. The evidence is very clearly there in both the show and the book if you know what to look for. But that hasn’t stopped theorists from concocting other theories. Is it Robert? (Why would Lyanna say Robert would want to kill the baby if it were him?) Is it Aerys? (This one is truly baffling.) It’s neither, but the show seems invested in keeping that mystery alive.

Bran actor Isaac Hempstead Wrightsaid in a recent interview, “All we know so far is that Jon Snow is (Lyanna’s) son with some unknown gentleman. It opens up a lot of questions, as well as answering a few.” So by muting some of Lyanna’s dialogue, Game of Thrones is inviting off-season speculation and crackpot theorists are welcome to ignore the Rhaegar evidence, but eventually the show will prove them wrong.

Otherwise known as the Great Northern Conspiracy, this particular theory has its origins in a book plot. In the novels, some of the Northern houses are working together to undermine the Boltons. And, in the novels, the Umbers are generally good guys. So when Smalljon Umber showed up with Rickon, Osha, and Shaggydog’s head, some fans immediately smelled subterfuge. Surely Smalljon was faking! That head was too small to be a direwolf! That didn’t even look like the real Rickon! Even after Rickon himself, Art Parkinson,shut the theory down, hope for some sort of last-minute Umber reversal in the Battle of the Bastards was still strong. Until . . . it wasn’t. Alas, Smalljon Umber was evil (and kind of racist). Rickon, Osha, and Shaggydog are dead. And when it comes to the Northern houses rallying around the Starks it looks like they needed a little girl to yell at them before they remembered where their loyalties truly lie.

It has been a long-held wish of book readers that Sandor and Gregor Clegane, both back from the dead (or almost dead) would meet during Cersei’s trial by combat and settle their ancient brotherly grudge. The theory got its start in 2013 on a 4chan thread. According to the theory, the Hound’s newfound spiritual life might mean he would fight for the High Sparrow and Gregor, of course, would fight for the Queen. But when Tommen declared, in Episode 8, that trial by combat was no longer an option, this dream died a bloody death. But the Clegane brothers are both still out there spoiling for a fight so even though the time and venue may be different, we still may see some sort of clash between these two titans before the saga is over.

This isn’t a theory so much as a discarded book plot. In the books, Catelyn Stark comes back from the dead to torment and torture all those who wronged House Stark. If she was going to come back, it should have happened back in Season 3 directly after the Red Wedding. But many (including myself) were holding out hope that the show was saving her. In the novels, Catelyn’s dead body is pulled out of the river by Arya’s wolf and resurrected by Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion. The re-introduction of those two coupled with the Hound literally pissing in the river seems to be the show telling us to give up on the hope of Lady Stoneheart. She’s not coming back. After Benjen and Jon, it would be one resurrected Stark too many.

Instead, the show seems to be giving some of Stoneheart’s work to both the Brotherhood Without Banners and Catelyn’s daughters: Arya and Sansa. The girls cooly and cruelly dispatched of House Bolton and House Frey (two of the architects of the Red Wedding). Rest assured that House Lannister will be in their crosshairs next.

Speaking of the Boltons, have you heard the one about Roose being a vampire? This one is pure book-reader madness. Roose actor Michael McElhattonexplains, “Apparently, I was a vampire. Because in the books, my character gets regular leechings and he’s very pale, pudgy character that has bloodsuckers on his body. So there was a theory that he was a vampire.” Is Roose the immortal son of the Night King waging a multi-generational war against mankind in general and undermining the Starks in particular? Is his sigil the flayed man because he’s actually wearing a fake skin suit to appear more human? Well, no, not unless a stab to the belly can kill a vampire. The proponents of this theory were crushed when Roose died in such an ordinary way.

HOW ELSE DO YOU EXPLAIN HIM GETTING FROM DORNE TO MEEREEN SO QUICKLY? Ahem. O.K., this is actually an old fun one from the books and based on textual evidence like Tyrion threatening to throw Varys overboard and the eunuch claiming he would be surprised by the results. (Here’s a 28-point breakdown if you’re curious.) Well, we haven’t seen Varys’s legs on the show, have we??

O.K., in all seriousness, the reason Varys is on Daenerys’s ship at the end of the season is because he and the Tyrells and the Sand Snakes sailed back to Slaver’s Bay (or the Bay of Dragons) in order to coordinate their attack. Daario told Daenerys she would need 1,000 ships in order to move all her troops (the Dothraki, their horses, the Unsullied, etc.). And that was before she drafted some Ironborn to her team. Whether or not she has 1,000 ships in the final shot, it’s hard to say. But she needed even more than the boats the Greyjoys and the Masters left behind in Meereen. She needed those Dornish and Tyrell ships. And they’re there, you can see the peach sails of House Martell and the green sails of House Tyrell in the background of the final shots if you squint. So, after a considerable amount of prep time, Daenerys’s fleet and the Greyjoy, Dornish, and Tyrell forces left Slaver’s Bay (their launch point was confirmed in a post-episode interview) and headed across the narrow sea to Westeros. They will probably meet up with even more Tyrell and Dornish ships when they get there. So if you stop trying to track the show’s progress along a linear timeline, it all makes perfect sense. Here’s producer Bryan Cogman on the subject: